Wednesday, December 21, 2011

It's hard to believe we've reached the end of another year. We hope our time together has meant as much to you as it has to us. We so appreciate your presence on this blog. You add much to the dialogue. We look forward to a new year. You can expect a few changes to our format, which we hope you'll enjoy as much as we do. Please join us in wishing Patti Hill a very happy birthday tomorrow. And from all of us to all of you, have a blessed Christmas season, and a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year. God bless you all.

Monday, December 19, 2011

To close off our contest, we wanted to spend a bit of time talking about the excerpts we posted the past two weeks. We have gained an appreciation for how difficult it is to hear the voice of an author in only a short piece, and I know that I (Bonnie) have grown to appreciate even more deeply the gifts and talents of the five women I am honored to called friends and colleagues.

My contribution was from Crossing the Breakheart which I am currently working on. I wrote this section about the protagonist tossing her manuscript from the Breakheart Bridge without really knowing why she wanted to get rid of it in the first place. I'd had a dream that she was standing on the bridge in her old age and knew that the manuscript was more or less a confession but didn't know what she was confessing. It was one of those times that I allowed the character to lead me until I found the bones of her story and she indicated that she needed help applying skin and muscle. I have to say that I wish I could have saved her from the consequences of her choices, but I could only help her find the good that God could bring from them.

I wrote my passage because I wanted to create an expectation in the reader. I wanted him or her to wonder about why someone would be out picking up bodies, and why she would continue doing that in spite of danger. But I also wanted to give a sense of the narrator, as a sensitive yet determined person who has the conviction that what she is doing has both earthly and eternal importance. She describes what she sees because she can't help but describe, which I hope gives the reader confidence that what they will read will be satisfying in its descriptions and explanations.

The lithopedia that I depicted in the first lines is a symbol of the dilemma of the narrator as well. As the author of

the epistle to the Hebrews, she carries a secret that may never come to light and life until her own life ends.

This scene is born from my protagonist Bristol's frustration at having her intensely personal and adamant intentions foiled by the three well-meaning women in her life: her sister, best friend, and crazy step-mother. Bristol has suffered incredible loss and can't bear to face the upcoming one-year anniversary, which is certain to be accompanied with renewed media presence. And so, she's gone away with the intent to take her life at the exact hour of the anniversary. But her trio of "keepers," unaware of her plans, conspire to keep her from being alone throughout the long weekend of the anniversary. It's their presence that lends the humorous relief that keeps Color of Sorrow from becoming an albatross around the neck of the reader.

My story, Goodness and Mercy, is about an orphaned sixteen-year-old girl who will do anything to keep her brother and sister from being adopted away from her. The story was born out of my family’s story. My mother was abandoned by her parents with six younger brothers and sisters to take care of when she was sixteen. The state stepped in to find homes for all of the children but her, because she was deemed old enough to take care of herself. All of these years later—she’s nearly 82—we are still a family, mostly because my mom didn’t let a little thing like adoption un-sister or un-brother her siblings. I love that about my mom. And I wanted to catch that fierce loyalty in my hero.This excerpt is Lucy’s (my hero’s) ordinary world, a world where she is in charge but still nearly a child herself. She’s visiting her mother’s bedroom as if it is a shrine, hoping to gain the courage to do what she must do.

The excerpt from A Girl Named Fish takes place in the first third of the novel, after we've gotten to know the main character, Joan, and the world she lives in. The novel is written in third person, with only the journal entries written in first person. The novel is deeply personal to me, my past, and my present. While the plot and characters are utterly original to the novel, Joan's journey is part of my emotional biography. The journal serves as a miniature of the entire novel, which allows the reader to understand Joan's entire life in brief. Miniatures can be important elements of storytelling, where the writer can revisit the larger questions asked in the novel in condensed and simplified form.

This excerpt is actually a discard from The Wonders of America, a story about a single mom trying to learn the meaning of family in time to save her daughter from a life as lonely as her own. And who are her teachers? Her daughter's father's family, as united (or not) and dysfunctional as the nation it lives in.

So why is this excerpt discarded? Because I am learning from these wise and wonderful authors, and understanding better what the story is about, and how it must be told, and where it wants to go.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

It's been an interesting and challenging contest on Novel Matters. Thanks to everyone who participated! We had fun. We had to hold our tongues. It was difficult not to blurt out the answers as the contest went on. But enough blabbing! One with the winners and the answers to who wrote what:

Our second and third place winners who will receive a copy of Novel Matters on Rice (and they are sooooooo pretty!) are: Henrietta Frankensee, and Cynthia Ruchti!!

Ladies, please email us to claim your prizes.

One last winner to announce. We are soft hearted women at Novel Matters, and were so

impressed by one woman who guessed the correct writer most of the time. We have to send out

a copy of Novel Matter on Rice to the lovely (and very correct) Megan Sayer! Email us!

Congratulations to all the winners, and a big thank you to all who played along.

Now for the reveal of who wrote what!

Day one. We began with this excerpt:

My keepers won’t let me out of their sight. If they think I’m going to fill my pockets with seashells like a wannabe Virginia Woolf and walk into the Pacific as if it were the River Ouse, they needn’t worry. That isn’t how I have it planned. Though they’ve pretty much crashed my site when it comes to the logistics of just how I’m going to pull this off now.

This gorgeous bit of writing was produced by Sharon Souza. It's from her completed novel The Color of Sorrow Isn't Blue.

Day two. The excerpt began with this paragraph:

I carry the wrapped child in front of me, in the crook of my aching arm, his head above his curled feet, as if he were alive. As if he had ever been born, or named, or

drew breath, or saw his dying mother’s eyes. As if she had ever seen his.

This is the haunting beginning to Latayne Scott's completed manuscript A Conspiracy of Breath.

Day Three. The excerpt began:

After Mother’s funeral I sat on her bed, fingered the peaks and valleys of her chenille spread and plumped her pillow to lean against the headboard. This was her world. A globe. A jelly glass of sharpened pencils. Bottles and bottles of pills. A tattered tower of crossword puzzles and a dictionary with a broken spine. A tub of

Ponds Beauty Cream. Three library books, one with a bookmark only pages from the end. A picture of Papa, me, and the twins. And a Bible swollen with use.

I opened the door and said hello to him through the screen. Eric was one of those polite boys with the acne and hair that needed washing and shoulders rounded like he was shielding himself from a blow. He held a paper in his hand.

This writing started an interesting conversation about voice and how a writer sounds like the place she comes from. Debbie Fuller Thomas is the author of this engaging writing, it is from her work-in-process, Crossing the Breakheart.

Day five. The excerpt read:

These are words of my lost hope. Lost or taken, I can’t be certain, although I once was sure about the order of my life, of the people who came and went, what things occurred and what did not. Does it seem strange to speak about the things that did not happen? As if absence can be marked by the fact of it. How can a person catalogue the life that did not take place?

This writing comes from Bonnie Grove's completed novel, A Girl Named Fish.

Day six. The excerpt began:

Christina tried to warn me about my boss.

"He's not the antichrist - I'm not saying that. Because everybody's going tolove the antichrist, and nobody likes Chuck. It's his one saving grace. But you watch him."

This last but not least excerpt belongs, of course, to the wonderful Kathleen Popa from her work-in-progress The Wonders of America.

We hope you enjoyed our Christmas contest as much as we did. On Monday, we will post a roundtable discussion about these novels, and explain the context of the excerpts. We invite you to join us on Monday to share your writing and reading insights and ideas.

For now: Did you guess correctly? Is there any author reveals that surprised you?

Friday, December 16, 2011

This is it, the last chance to win a $50 gift certificate toward a George Popa sculpture. It's proving a bit more challenging to tell our writing apart than we thought, but we're thrilled that each of us has been mistaken for the other. Such a compliment!

You'll find an unpublished excerpt from one of our six Novel Matters authors below. Consider this sneak peak a Christmas present for your faithful following. We worry all the time that you are giving us so much more than we can hope to offer. We treasure your friendship and pray that the presence of Christ is staggering in your celebration of Christmas. And after you've read the excerpt, guess which one of us wrote it in the comments section.

Here are the rules, again:

1. One guess per post day. (You may play all six days. That's six chances to win a sculpture!)

2. Guesses will be accepted until 9:00 PM Pacific Time the day of the post.

3. Each correct guess wins you one chance in the drawing.

4. The winner will be announced on December 17, 2011.

There are second and third prizes, too, hard copies of our cookbook, Novel Matters on Rice: What to Cook When You'd Rather Be Writing. They're beautiful and full of easy recipes for writers and others, plus quotes about writing and faith from each of us.

And here's our--ta-dah!--final reading:

Christina tried to warn me about my boss.

"He's not the antichrist - I'm not saying that. Because everybody's going to love the antichrist, and nobody likes Chuck. It's his one saving grace. But you watch him."

I don’t pretend to understand much of what she said, but I knew Chuck, and I did watch him.

Just not near close enough.

The day it began was pleasant, at first - just that. The birds were singing their usual amount. The sky was blue, with a haze on the edges from a recent forest fire someplace to the south.

My friends had dropped by for coffee before I left for work. I called them “the Eena's,” Christina Alvarez and Serena Ortega, sisters who raised their families in adjoining halves of a duplex across the street.

I stood at the kitchen counter, browsing through the stuff my daughter had brought home from school.

The paper I held in my hand informed me that Claire Danes was my great-grandmother. Well - not Claire, but Yvaine, the fallen star she played in Stardust.

Her mother - my great-great-grandmother - was Pocahontas, and her mother was Cleopatra. On the other side of the family tree, a bit further back, was Mary Poppins.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Welcome back for day five of the Name That Author Contest. Do the days go by faster in December? Of course, they do! Take this moment to breathe deeply and do yourself a favor. Our contest is a way to treat yourself this Christmas. Read the excerpt below from one of our six authors. This is from her work in progress, never published, never seen by the public. What a treat! If you think you have a guess, go to comments and leave your guess.

We have a wonderful, beautiful, marvelous prize for our contest--a $50 gift certificate toward a George Popa sculpture. Second and third places will win a hard copy of our cookbook, Novel Tips on Rice: What to Cook When You'd Rather be Writing. The recipes are grand and the graphic artwork is done by our own Katy Popa, an artist in her own right.

Just so we're clear, here are the rules again:

1. One guess per post day. (You may play all six days. That's six chances to win a sculpture!)

2. Guesses will be accepted until 9:00 PM Pacific Time the day of the post.

3. Each correct guess wins you one chance in the drawing.

4. The winner will be announced on December 17, 2011.

And here's excerpt #5:

These are words of my lost hope. Lost or taken, I can’t be certain, although I once was sure about the order of my life, of the people who came and went, what things occurred and what did not. Does it seem strange to speak about the things that did not happen? As if absence can be marked by the fact of it. How can a person catalogue the life that did not take place? The cancelled meeting, the person who did not come, the blister that never raised on my foot. I can do this because everything is always happening, all at once inside each of us. I carry in me the same primordial instinct as did my ancestors and the ancestors before them. The footprint of time is stamped deeply into my DNA and my body tells me of the things that never happened to it, but could have. Should have. And in another time, did.

I’m not crazy. I don’t need to be told what is real. These are the days I live with my eyes closed. The days of absence.

This place within these pages is the only place where no one can touch us. No one can approach, encroach, or rip away. We are safe here in the pages of this book. My journal of the other life I lead. This is the journal of my fondest hope, the place where I have found my truest feeling, my deepest emotion, my most real self. The true life I found lying within the husk of an empty future.

I’m not crazy. None of this is real. Yet it is more real than my hands, which write it.

Now it begins.

A life takes up residence so deep within me its existence can’t be detected on earth.

A secret that is buried weightless inside of my flesh. A heart not yet beating, yet it complies with steady contractions of my own heart. In time, it will take on flesh that is forged by will—constructed—life that is sprung from God’s imagination.

From the beginning, the two of us together extend and contract, one begins and one ends, each contained by the other. My body’s darkness possesses his body, and inside of his forming body he possesses our now shared soul.

It is a boy. I know this in the way women know things. He has a name, it’s the one that has dwelt in the back of my mind from the time I was old enough to have my thoughts turn to such things. A name I don’t speak or allow myself to think. Not yet.

They say you should wait until after the first three months—the first trimester—that it’s within this fragile time so many babies slip from the womb. But he is solidly inside of me. I know this, too in that same female knowing way. He is a stone set in the sediment of a tranquil river. A resident, and not just a stranger passing through. The certainty of him seeps in. But still, I wait to speak his name. I know he doesn’t blame me.

I lie in my bed, and together he and I rest in our shared secret knowledge of one another. I sing him songs that until now I didn’t know I knew the words to. As if his presence has brought the memory of music back to me. This sits right and good. Like another miracle being dragged. That is what this is: a cluster of miracles one following on the other’s heels.

You want to read more, don't you? I know, it's wonderful. Which one of us is this? Make your guess in comments.

Monday, December 12, 2011

It's another week of Name That Author here at Novel Matters, our way of partying with you this Christmas holiday. We're glad you're here to play along. Read the passage from one of our works in progress below and guess which of us wrote it in a comment. If you guess correctly, your name will be entered into a drawing for a $50 gift certificate toward a George Popa sculpture. They're beautiful! And just so you know, the gift certificate will cover the cost of one of his sculptures. Amazing. Second and third places will win a hard copy of our cookbook, Novel Tips on Rice: What to Cook When You'd Rather be Writing.

Here are the contest rules:

1. One guess per post day. (You may play all six days. That's six chances to win a sculpture!)

2. Guesses will be accepted until 9:00 PM Pacific Time the day of the post.

I opened the door and said hello to him through the screen. Eric was one of those polite boys with the acne and hair that needed washing and shoulders rounded like he was shielding himself from a blow. He held a paper in his hand.

“I think this might be yours.”

He briefly met my eyes and looked away, rubbing the back of his neck with his other hand. I unlocked the screen and took the paper from him.

…and Sophie was not the type of woman to ‘go gentle into that good night’ without raging…

My name rested at the top left corner.

The page wasn’t even wet.

My voice came out pinched and accusing. “Just where did you get this, young man?”

“Yes, ma’am. All up and down both sides. I saw it on my way home from delivering the paper to the Jolleys.”

More pages. Not in the river. On the riverbank. On…The growing roar in my ears made it difficult to hear what he was saying, and it alarmed me when he opened the screen and reached out, but in the end he kept me from hitting the floor by carefully lowering me onto the rug where I sat with my head between my knees.

Hey, wait a minute! I want to read more! I'm sure you do, too. Okay, make your best guess and come back on Wednesday for another chance to guess and enter.

Friday, December 9, 2011

As the time to celebrate Immanuel draws closer, we pray your hearts of full of wondrous anticipation. God is with us!

We are very, very grateful for all you add to the Novel Matters blog. The conversations we've had here have deepened our faith and set our resolves to craft beautiful fiction. It's time to celebrate that relationship with a contest.

If you've been with us since Monday, you know how this works. If not, read on. You still have plenty of chances to add your name to the drawings. All you need to know about contest rules, prizes, and that excerpt you've been waiting for can be found here:

All six of us have works in progress no one has read, except for a select few and certainly our mothers. You've been reading our posts for three years now, so we figure you must be getting familiar with our voices. How about our fictional voices?

Here's how the contest works: On our regular post days (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) for the next two weeks, we'll be posting a short excerpt from a work in progress, anonymously. That's right, your job is to guess which one of us wrote the passage, just from the sound of our voices. Give us your guess in the comments section. If you guess correctly, your name will be added to the prize drawing.

And what is the wonderful prize? Katy's husband, George, is a gifted sculptor. He has donated a $50 gift certificate toward one of his sculptures. You can see his work here. We can't promise the sculpture will be at your house for Christmas. That would have required much more forethought than six artist types could muster, but we can promise that you'll love George's work. Second and third places will win a hard copy of our cookbook, Novel Tips on Rice: What to Cook When You'd Rather be Writing.

Here are the rules:

1. One guess per post day. (You may play all six days. That's six chances to win a sculpture!)

2. Guesses will be accepted until 9:00 PM Pacific Time the day of the post.

3. Each correct guess wins you one chance in the drawing.

4. The winner will be announced on December 17, 2011.

Here is the third excerpt:

After Mother’s funeral I sat on her bed, fingered the peaks and valleys of her chenille spread and plumped her pillow to lean against the headboard. This was her world. A globe. A jelly glass of sharpened pencils. Bottles and bottles of pills. A tattered tower of crossword puzzles and a dictionary with a broken spine. A tub of Ponds Beauty Cream. Three library books, one with a bookmark only pages from the end. A picture of Papa, me, and the twins. And a Bible swollen with use.

I touched all of these things—balanced a pencil on my finger, smeared cream over my face, spun the globe to run my finger along its worn equator. The Bible crinkled when I picked it up. I fanned the pages to release the smell of ink and old leather. A photograph fell into my lap.

And there she was, my mother, a teenager standing self-consciously in front of an old car. One hand covered her mouth to hide the gap in her teeth, something she’d done even as an adult, but her eyes were smiling. She wasn’t alone in the picture. A small girl, much younger and as fair as butter, hugged Mother’s waist. The little girl’s head tilted back as she laughed. They were salt and pepper, light and dark.

Who is she?

Who is she, indeed? The author, I mean. Who is she? Give your guess in the comments section for a chance to win $50 toward one of George Popa's beautiful sculptures or a cookbook.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Welcome to day two of our Name That Author contest. This is our way of expressing appreciation for all you share with us through the year. We learn so much from you about writing and so much more. Here's the lowdown on the contest:

All six of us have works in progress no one has read, except for a select few and certainly our mothers. You've been reading our posts for three years now, so we figure you must be getting familiar with our voices. How about our fictional voices?

Here's how the contest works: On our regular post days (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) for the next two weeks, we'll be posting a short excerpt from a work in progress, anonymously. That's right, your job is to guess which one of us wrote the passage, just from the sound of our voices. Give us your guess in the comments section. If you guess correctly, your name will be added to the prize drawing.

And what is the wonderful prize? Katy's husband, George, is a gifted sculptor. He has donated a $50 gift certificate toward one of his sculptures. You can see his work here. We can't promise the sculpture will be at your house for Christmas. That would have required much more forethought than six artist types could muster, but we can promise that you'll love George's work. Second and third places will win a hard copy of our cookbook, Novel Tips on Rice: What to Cook When You'd Rather be Writing.

Here are the rules:

1. One guess per post day. (You may play all six days. That's six chances to win a sculpture!)

2. Guesses will be accepted until 9:00 PM Pacific Time the day of the post.

3. Each correct guess wins you one chance in the drawing.

4. The winner will be announced on December 17, 2011.

Here is the second excerpt:

I carry the wrapped child in front of me, in the crook of my aching arm, his head above his curled feet, as if he were alive. As if he had ever been born, or named, or drew breath, or saw his dying mother’s eyes. As if she had ever seen his.

This is night work, and the mule beside me stumbles in the uneven, now unseen streets that only reveal shadow and character in the light of a doorway, here and there. All around our feet are what people throw away after a spectacle – torn banners, scraps of food, dropped, lost mementos.

Behind me on the creaking wagon are the remains, what I gather after the spectacle: torn things, fallen, saved, remembered.

When I first began this job, I could do it in the daylight. It was a curiosity to those who saw me, a woman who wore the robes of aristocracy and did the work of a ghoul. Most of those who knew me would not meet my eyes, or if they did, it was with a mixture of disgust and wonder. And later, some of them, with triumph; from behind secure windows, around impassable gates.

The first time I gained permission to bring the bodies back from the killing places, Cordelia began to strategize how to borrow a cart and donkey. Many of our friends still lived and had animals then, and she still had a bit of her father’s money left.

“We’ll need a big wagon,” she calculated, counting without knowing it on her crooked knuckles, imagining that the aftereffects of imperial entertainment would necessitate strong beasts of burden, perhaps several trips with several wagons.

She wasn’t thinking straight, I should have seen that. There is little left when wild lions are finished with a human being.

I lined the wagon with pieces of old goat-hair tents. People bring me the ripped flaps, snagged beckets, unsalvageable vestibules. When my needle cannot resurrect them, they leave the raveling remnants with me.

It's time to guess which of us wrote this passage in the comments section. Good luck!

Monday, December 5, 2011

Oh my, Christmas nearly caught us by surprise! And we so want to express our appreciation--and have a little fun--with our readers for another great year of writer talk at Novel Matters. You've all become very dear to us and taught us so much about life, faith, and writing. It's definitely time for a contest.

All six of us have works in progress no one has read, except for a select few and certainly our mothers. You've been reading our posts for three years now, so we figure you must be getting familiar with our voices. How about our fictional voices?

Here's how the contest works: On our regular post days (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) for the next two weeks, we'll be posting a short excerpt from a work in progress, anonymously. That's right, your job is to guess which one of us wrote the passage, just from the sound of our voices. Give us your guess in the comments section. If you guess correctly, your name will be added to the prize drawing.

And what is the wonderful prize? Katy's husband, George, is a gifted sculptor. He has donated a $50 gift certificate toward one of his sculptures. You can see his work here. We can't promise the sculpture will be at your house for Christmas. That would have required much more forethought than six artist types could muster, but we can promise that you'll love George's work. Second and third places will win a hard copy of our cookbook, Novel Tips on Rice: What to Cook When You'd Rather be Writing.

Here are the rules:

1. One guess per post day. (You may play all six days. That's six chances to win a sculpture!)

2. Guesses will be accepted until 9:00 PM Pacific Time the day of the post.

3. Each correct guess wins you one chance in the drawing.

4. The winner will be announced on December 17, 2011.

Here is the first excerpt:

My keepers won’t let me out of their sight. If they think I’m going to fill my pockets with seashells like a wannabe Virginia Woolf and walk into the Pacific as if it were the River Ouse, they needn’t worry. That isn’t how I have it planned. Though they’ve pretty much crashed my site when it comes to the logistics of just how I’m going to pull this off now.

I hate women who meddle.

Okay, that’s a strong statement even for me. I just wish I’d forgone the request to borrow the beach house and come without anyone knowing. Broken in or something, a stealth trespasser. But I wanted them to know where to find me, when this is over, and I’m paying the price for it now.

I cast a glance at my red-polka-dotted stepmother, who stops every few feet to shake the sand off her flip flops, not caring how ungraceful she looks. A sand crane she’s not. But she is the organizer in all of this meddling, I’d bet my life on it. Ha. Not much of a bet. I bark out a laugh at my secret joke, and I swear I hear a seal bark back a reply.

Sissy turns her face my direction, and covers her eyes with a cupped hand against a sun that’s dipped past its zenith. "What’s that, Bristol love?"

I pretend her words get lost in the wind, like a kite sailing off without a string. Oops, there they go... As a diversionary tactic I reach down, pick up the remains of a starfish and hurl it Frisbee-like into the waves. My efforts are as lame as everything else in my life, as the very next breaker brings it back to my feet. I bend down and pick it up again, my boomerang starfish. And I’m pounded with the thought, where is my boomerang baby? Oh, God, where?

Name the author in the comments section for chance to win a beautiful sculpture!

Friday, December 2, 2011

Readers say they want reality.Publishers say too much reality is a downer and downers don’t sell.They say people who are in the midst of debt, depression, bankruptcy and loss don’t want to read heavy topics.Readers need something distracting and uplifting and the sales numbers bear it out. So we try to tell our stories in positive, uplifting ways but if the story subject is heavy to begin with, how do you even market the book?How do your write back cover copy that conveys both realism and hope – something that will make readers want to take a chance?

How much reality do people really want?

During the 30s, Hollywood produced movies like Gone with the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Snow White, Captains Courageous, and Stagecoach to distract the public from the problems of the Great Depression.Escapism.These stories couched realism in fancy.A woman survives the Civil War, a girl learns she has power over her situations and another runs from her dysfunctional family.A boy learns what it takes to be a man, and a man becomes a hero.Let’s face it, these are great stories, regardless of the financial climate.

Latayne and Patti led us into some great discussions on authentic writing this week, and many of you shared from deep places in your lives.So much potential for great storytelling! And while there are wonderful, authentic stories in the Christian market that require us to wade with the protagonist through swift, muddy waters to the shores of spiritual growth, there are others that simply distract us from our problems for awhile.A bit of escapism is okay, too.

For those of us who prefer the swift, muddy waters, it is quite possible that we are not the target audience of Christian fiction.If so, where does that leave us as readers and writers?Tell us what you think.

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Praise for Novel Matters Authors

Lying on Sunday:"Sharon has created a character so vivid and real you'll feel as though you've stepped into Abbie Torrington's life. You don't want to miss this beautiful story of healing and grace" Virginia Smith, author of Age Before Beauty.

The Feast of Saint Bertie:"A story-feast from the get-go! The Feast of Saint Bertie is a surprising, engaging, unique story that will challenge readers to rethink what it means to be a Christ-follower in today's crazy, materialistic culture. With vivid characters, unconventional settings, and a beautifully unfolding plot, this book is the kind that will stay with you, like the fond memory of a great meal."~Mary E. DeMuth, author of Watching the Tree Limbs and Wishing on Dandelions.

Talking to the Dead:“It isn’t often that I get so hooked on the characters and story that I forget time and purpose. Talking to the Dead caught hold of my heart from page one. It takes a gifted and intuitive writer like Bonnie to bring humor into the middle of such a serious story. Call her the Jodi Piccoult of Christian fiction! Beautifully done! I can’t wait to read the next story she writes.” ~Francine Rivers, bestselling author of Redeeming LoveLatter Day Cipher:"Latter-Day Cipher involves the reader not only in a page-turning murder mystery, but also in the struggles of those who must face their own shaken beliefs. A former faithful Mormon, author Scott is sympathetic to those struggles, and attempts to look compassionately at the process of making the hard decision to change."—Sandra Furlong Christian Retailing (Latter Day Cipher is a "top pick" March 2009)

Tuesday Night at the Blue Moon:"An unusual plotline and top-notch prose mark this talented novelist’s debut...competent dialogue, touches of humor, and sparkling character dynamics make this a welcome addition to the faith fiction fold." --Publishers WeeklyThe Queen of Sleepy Eye:“Few stories are able to portray both the crushing cost of sin and the transforming power of grace. The Queen of Sleepy Eye succeeds brilliantly. Patti Hill crafts each word with beauty and artistry.” Sharon Hinck, author of Stepping into Sunlight